Optimae customers across the company have access to a newly revamped service that provides additional support for their recovery through goal-based work.

Intensive Psychiatric Rehabilitation (IPR) is guided by the values of customer involvement, choice, self-determination and principles drawn from the field of physical rehabilitation. It helps individuals with serious and persistent mental illness achieve goals that improve their success and satisfaction in living, learning, working and socializing.

Iowa’s IPR program was previously dormant due to a lack of certified trainers and practitioners. To provide IPR, trainers must receive specialized training from Boston University. Up until last year, only one person in Iowa qualified to provide training to practitioners.

The program got a lifeline last summer when the state, through a Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration grant, provided training to practitioners and IPR trainers. This allowed Optimae to certify one trainer, Cedar Valley Regional Director Erika Benedict, and a handful of practitioners from across the company.

Iowa also holds monthly IPR practitioner trainer webinars for all participating agencies in the state to continue to grow the program and add to its stability.

Participants who complete IPR have significantly increased earnings and live more independently. They also use significantly less inpatient and day treatment and partial hospitalization than individuals who do not use IPR, according to a Boston University Center for Psychiatric Rehabilitation outcomes study on Iowa’s IPR program.

The IPR program has five goal-directed and time-limited components that include a readiness assessment, readiness development, goal setting, goal achievement and goal keeping. To find out more about the program at Optimae, email Erika Benedict at ebenedict@optimaelifeservices.com.

Wilmuth Luther, or Wilma as she likes to be called, greets Brick Street Bakery customers with a hug and smile. It’s something they’ve come to expect. For Wilma, everyone is family.

At age 69, her body aches. She deals with an intellectual disability, although it hasn’t stopped her from finding success. Never fail, Wilma is at Brick Street three days a week making donuts, breads and scones. There are also the less glamorous chores of sweeping, cleaning bathrooms and washing dishes. But she doesn’t mind.

Wilma has found success and expanded her skills since joining Brick Street Bakery in 2017 and, prior to that, Brick Street Books and Café, where she was hired in 2014. It has also provided her with a valued role in the Adel community and helped ease the symptoms of her disability.

Brick Street Bakery and Brick Street Books and Café are both microbusinesses owned and operated by Optimae LifeServices. Optimae is a health care and human services company that provides comprehensive services to approximately 4,000 Iowans with mental illness and disabilities.

It opened the businesses as a way to provide supported employment opportunities to its clients, who are paired with job coaches to help build their skills. Optimae now runs 10 microbusinesses spread across Central and Southeastern Iowa that support more than 80 jobs for its clients.

Wilma’s success at Brick Street has also helped her outside of work. Adel residents have embraced her. She goes to church with customers from Lincoln Savings Bank, which neighbors the bakery.

“I like to sing,” Wilma said. “I like to pray. And I like the bible.”

Wilma now works exclusively at the Brick Street Bakery in its new location. If you haven’t been in to get one of her heart-warming greetings, you are missing out.

This is part of an ongoing series highlighting individuals’ journey with mental illness in an effort to educate others about the disease and fight the stigma attached to it during Mental Health Awareness Month.At age 20, Brent Deppe had his first mental break.Then a Central College sophomore, Deppe … [Continue reading...] about Mental illness offers new opportunities